TROUBLES IN WII PARADISE

In general, I am very happy with my Wii setup, in particular Wii Fit exercise program and Wii Board.  But as my son pointed out recently, it's over 10 years old, the world has moved on to bigger and better things.  Well, maybe not better, as the Wii physical input is probably still the best.  Yes, things are breaking down, perhaps aided by fumbling fingers.  Recall that when I recently re-discovered the Wii controllers and boards, the busted batteries appeared to do some damages to the battery compartment.  That wasn't the case.  But then the family started to use the setup regularly, everyday, sometimes by three different people.  Mistakes were made and new batteries got depleted.  One controller started acting weird, going off on its own or losing connection to the main system.  Luckily, there is a market for replacement controllers and I got a pair this week.  A visit to some setup screen and the new controllers detected the mothership, we already started using them yesterday.  (They actually arrived that day Tropic Storm Isaias cut off our power, didn't do us much good to have them.)

Something else that's different with the Wii setup is how the top ten list for Wii Fit Plus behaves.  While I am still glad that the ranking carried over from Wii Fit to Wii Fit Plus, I also noticed that some list got many entries cleared out.  Can it be because the main system is running out of storage space?  So that given the additional poses and exercises that came with Plus some older ranking must be removed?  I think as long as the top few positions are still intact, I am OK with it.  Yeah, first world problems.

A WII BIT BETTER EXPERIENCE

One day a few months ago, during the height of the pandemic perhaps, I decided to better explore the Wii program Wii Fit and its companion Wii Board.  The product was bought years ago to help my young son lose weight.  The Nintendo Wii is great in that it requires physical interaction with its programs, but the Wii Fit program takes it a step further.  Instead of games disguised as exercise, Wii Fit offers training sessions in yoga, strength training, aerobic exercises, and yes, plain simple games that also requires some simple forms of physical movement.  You start out interacting via the standard Wii Remote, but then you would need to power on the Wii Board and get your weight measured, your center of balance, etc.  Excellent tool to have during a pandemic lockdown!

PSA!  If you are still sheltering in place and have a lot of free time, then search for electronic devices that use AA, AAA batteries etc.  Open up the battery compartment and see what state of decomposition the batteries are.  In my case, the Wii Board and both Wii Remotes had busted batteries.  I had to clean the contacts with rubbing alcohol, via a cotton swab, and all is well now.  I even re-visited an Apple Bluetooth keyboard (model A1314) and managed to remove a busted battery to regain use of the device.  The only battery-operated item that I couldn't save was a freebie flashlight.  No need to waste energy trying to save that.

I never like the point and click interface of the Wii.  It takes a little getting used and I guess old me never got around it.  Luckily, for Wii Fit, I discovered that after the first few initial screens, once the yoga lessons get rolling, I can do most of the interactions via the directional buttons and the A button.  Just move up, down, left, or right as needed, note which item gets highlighted, then press A.  To go from Yoga to Strength Training, use the minus or plus ( - or + ) button. The B button on the underside of the Wii Remote is for going back to the previous layer.  See what I mean, with the knowledge which button does what you shouldn't need to point at the Wii Receiver any more to interact with Wii Fit.